


something always brings me back to you

by brookethenerd



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Post-Break Up, Sharing a Bed, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:07:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21817135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookethenerd/pseuds/brookethenerd
Summary: Steve and the reader broke up, but when they’re snowed in at the Henderson house with no power, they have no choice but to share the bed(and talk about their problems *gasp* and maybe even deal with them *double gasp*)
Relationships: Steve Harrington/Reader, Steve Harrington/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 72





	something always brings me back to you

The power went out just before sundown, taking the heat and the comfort of the light with it. It was just you and Dustin that night, your mother across town at her sister’s for their weekly catch up. She was scheduled to be back before dark, but with the snow piling itself in heaps outside and no power or light to push through it, it was a likely guess that she wouldn’t return until morning.

That left you and Dustin to light candles and uncover every blanket that was hiding in the house. You tore through the boxes in the basement until you found four thick, fluffy ones, and headed back up the stairs, content with your haul. When you heard Dustin’s voice, locked in a conversation, you figured he was just talking to the cat, as both of you often did.

It was when a voice talked back that you nearly dropped the blankets.

Before you and Steve Harrington had broken up, he and Dustin’s friendship was sweet and cute, and Dustin could use some positive male presence in the house. Now that you were broken up, though, it meant ducking back into your room at the sound of his car approaching more times than you’d like to admit. And there he was again, in your house, for some unknown reason.

You made your way into the living room and found him and Dustin setting up a bed on the couch, which could only be for one person, considering you and your brother had your own bedrooms.

_Oh, no fucking way._

“Uh…hey.” You dropped the blankets on the empty armchair, Dustin and Steve straightening and turning to look at you. Dustin, pink-cheeked - he knew he’d screwed up - and Steve, eyes wide like a deer in headlights.

“What are you doing here?” He asked. You arched a brow, slamming your wall down. Running into an ex-boyfriend was, unfortunately, a common occurrence in such a small town, but running into him in your _own house_ was not.

“In _my_ living room?”

His ears turned pink, and he raked a hand through his hair - his tell-tale nervous tick. “I didn’t see your car outside.”

“In the shop. My engine was making weird noises.” Not that he deserved an explanation; this was _your_ house after all.

“Oh,” was all he said. Dustin jumped into action, ever the mediator these days.

“Steve’s parents are out of town, _shocker_ , and their power is out, too. They don’t have a fireplace, but we do, so-”

“So you invited him for a sleepover,” you finished. Dustin grimaced.

“Yeah.”

You wished you were a worse person. Had you been more of an asshole, you’d have turned Steve right around, tucked a blanket into his hands, and sent him on his way. But you knew him, knew he was all alone in that big house; knew from personal experience how cold it could be. You couldn’t kick him out.

“Whatever,” you said, hoping it came out nonchalant, “I’m not going to make you go home and freeze to death.”

“Thanks,” he said, and you nodded curtly. You headed for the kitchen, catching Dustin’s eye over your shoulder and jerking a chin for him to follow. He did, shoulders sunken, already preparing for the lecture.

The moment you were out of earshot, you whirled to face him, hands on your hips.

“Dustin-”

“I know, I know! But come on, he’s all alone over there. He always comes over on nights like these.”

“That was before-”

“Are you going to kick him out?” Dustin interrupted, looking younger than his years at that moment. It was easy to forget the things he’d seen, the comfort he’d found in having Steve as a friend. He felt the tension of the break, too, as much as you wished he hadn’t. It wasn’t fair that he had to lose a friend because you and Steve couldn’t get past your own shit.

“No, Dusty.” You ruffled his curls. “I’m not. Just…a little warning next time, maybe?”

He crinkled his nose. “Yeah, that was…my bad.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

* * *

It was freezing when you woke - sometime in the middle of the night, though without clocks you didn’t know when - even bundled up in your room. Yours was the warmest room in the house, the old houses walls insulation holding up the most. You tugged a blanket around your shoulders as you slid out of bed, heading to the kitchen for a glass of water.

When you passed the living room, you saw Steve curled up in the armchair - the closest seating to the fireplace - shivering in his sleep. The blaze had died down, the red embers quiet in their bed of coal and wooden ash. When you approached him, Steve’s lips were basically blue.

You knelt down and shook his shoulder lightly. His eyes snapped open, and he jumped, relaxing when he realized it was you.

“Why didn’t you ask for more blankets?”

He shrugged and tugged his measly spread further up. “Didn’t w-want to either of you to get cold.” His teeth chattered as he spoke. You shrugged off our own blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders against his protest, but it didn’t do much to warm him.

“My room is the warmest in the house. Just…come with me.” You had to force the words through gritted teeth, already regretting the sentiment. But you couldn’t exactly leave him to freeze. You still loved the bastard, and it would suck to come out and find him a pile of frozen toes and fingers in the morning.

His brows furrowed, and he eyed you like you were joking, or this was some kind of hallucination, a dream.

“We may not be together anymore, but it would be pretty shitty of me to let you freeze to death out here,” you said, voice softer than you intended. He hesitated a beat, lips pulling thin, before standing up and gathering his blankets. He dragged them behind him like a child as he followed you to your room; while still cold, it was at least ten degrees warmer, safely out of freezing-fingers territory.

Steve went to work making a pallet for himself on the floor, and though part of you didn’t want to stop him, it _was_ way warmer in the bed. And it wasn’t like you hadn’t shared one before.

_Damn it._

“Just get in the bed, will you?” You dropped down onto one side of the mattress, leaving enough room for him. He stilled, looking more nervous than you’d seen him in years; since the first time he’d shared your bed, actually. A time when you were young and uncertain about each other; before your limbs folded together like puzzle pieces, before you knew his skin better than your own.

“Are you…are you sure?”

“I’m not asking you to fuck, I’m asking you to share the bed, so you don’t freeze to death.” He flinched at the harshness you hadn’t intended, and you softened. “I just mean…I don’t…god, I don’t know. Just get in the bed, and tomorrow we can pretend this never happened, okay?”

He held out longer than you expected; sure, you were broken up, but you couldn’t help but be a little offended he didn’t charge the bed like a bull. He crossed the room slowly as if expecting you to change your mind and send him back into the cold living room. The bed creaked as he dropped down on it, and he slid under the covers, letting out a sigh of relief at the warmth. You resisted the urge to smile.

He rolled to face you, and you relished in the chance to just look at him, look at him in the way you hadn’t in weeks. The curl of his hair, the hairline scar on his jaw from taking one of the Russian’s punches, the bumpy bridge of a nose not borne unto him but broken. Still as beautiful as the day you’d let him go.

“Better?”

He nodded, almost shyly. His teeth slowed in their chatter.

“Long as you don’t hog the covers.”

“I have never-”

“You always do,” he said, lips quirking up, “ _did_.” The smile fell at his correction, and your stomach twisted painfully. A sad laugh slipped past your lips, and you rolled onto your back, shaking your head.

“Things were so much easier when I hated you,” you said.

He knew what you meant without needing an explanation; in high school, you’d hated the king of Hawkins high with fervor, though you hadn’t really known him. He was a dick, and that was all you needed.

And then, one day, he wasn’t. He was kind, and he was sweet, and he was silly and goofy, and he made you laugh like no one ever had. You were in love with him long before you realized it, but when you did - when he did - it had been incredible.

But all good things must come to an end, as the poets say. And when they do, it rips you to pieces and leaves the debris behind for you to trip over.

“Good to know you don’t hate me now,” he said. You frowned and turned your head to look at him.

“I don’t think I ever actually hated you. I think I was…I don’t know. Jealous of what you had, or what I thought you had. But I…I could never hate you, Steve.”

“I could never hate you either,” he said, more serious than was typical of him.

Maybe it was the dark or the cold, or perhaps you were just too tired to care, too tired to keep faking it.

“Good to know,” you said.

He hesitated for a moment, and you could practically hear the gears turning in his brain, his back and forth on whether or not to speak. He apparently decided on yes.

“You never told me why,” he said. The rest was unspoken but clear: why you ended it. You sighed.

“You seemed so…unhappy. And I love you, still love you, probably always _will_ love you, but I wanted you to be happy. It seemed like you _wanted_ it.”

He stiffened, pushing up to a seated position and facing you. You followed suit.

“Are you kidding me? You thought- that’s why you…” he trailed off, shock evident on his features. “I wasn’t unhappy. I thought you were tired of me. That’s why when you did it, I didn’t fight it.”

“ _What_?”

“I always knew you’d be better off without me, and you…you made it easy. I didn’t want to keep fucking up your life.”

“Fucking up my life?” You asked, appalled. “You were the only thing in my life that _wasn’t_ fucked up. The _only_ thing.”

His features softened, walls crashing down as sadness filled his eyes. Regret pooled in your gut; you’d ruined the one good thing you had, and it might be too late to get it back.

“You still love me?” He asked. It wasn’t necessarily what you’d wanted him to focus on, but you’d said the words, and couldn’t be angry at him for picking them up.

You couldn’t even protest. “I never stopped.”

His lips pulled thin, gaze searching your face as if looking for a trace of doubt, an inkling that you were lying.

But you weren’t. You were just…stupid, and you’d been blind, and you’d broken whatever was between you before anything else had a chance to do it.

Instead of storming out, instead of yelling or screaming at you for what you’d done, Steve only reached out to take the hem of your shirt between his fingers, staring down at the fabric like it was some kind of enigma. When he met your gaze again, you spoke.

“I wasn’t better off without you. I’ll never be better off without you. I’ m… I’m sorry for…for fucking everything up.”

He frowned and reached out to touch your cheek; he hesitated an inch away, only letting his fingers settle at your nod. You leaned into his touch, and he let out a sigh.

“You didn’t fuck it all up. We both did that.”

“What do we do now? What do we do with that?”

He hesitated, looking around the small bedroom he’d spent more hours in than his own house in the year before you’d broken up before looking at you.

“I’d try again, if you would.”

It was as if they were magic words. The pain that had gnawed at you for weeks subsided, the guilt and shame flitted away, until all that was left was you and Steve and the inches between you. Inches you’d created, inches he hadn’t pushed against.

“I would,” you said. His lips quirked up ever so softly, and he laid back down, holding an arm out, a silent invitation. It was the moment of truth, the last moment to choose.

But, you realized there was never a choice to make. The answer was always Steve. You’d just gotten lost; you’d both gotten lost.

You didn’t want to be lost anymore. So, you curled up against him, and his arm slid around you. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, and you pressed one to his chest. You drew the covers up over you, blocking out the cold and the darkness.

Getting lost isn’t always the end, you realized. Sometimes, if you want it bad enough, you can find your way back.


End file.
